The London Olympics have been hit by a wave of criticism following the shocking images of rows of empty seats at many of this week's sporting events.

Under fire, are both the responsible for ticket sales of London 2012 and the various Olympic sponsors, which seem to have not used the entry tickets at their disposal.

Ticket sales have been causing troubles to organizers since early this year; many were the frustrated Londoners that did not manage to acquire tickets to the sporting events due to an overdemand for the limited places.

The sudden appearance of empty seats did not help mending relations.

The British public has demanded for the unused tickets to be redistributed. As a response, Lord Coe, head of the Games, was reported saying that the "problem did not appear to be related to sponsors" and that "it’s certainly not going to be an issue right through the games.”

A similar issue took place in Beijing in 2008

Trying to placate public anger, Organizers are now recruiting soldiers and students to fill up the void.

At least for them, the Olympics will be enjoyable to watch.

The Olympic Ceremony came to an end leaving everyone thrilled by the show presented by Slumdog Millionaire’s director Danny Boyle. The show, which had been subject to much speculation and criticism before tonight, was universally acclaimed as the best yet in Olympic history.

Starting at the scheduled time, the ceremony ended one hour after the projected scheduling. Many icons of British culture, from Mr. Bean’s Rowan Atkinson, to James Bond, the Queen, the Beatles, and numerous other references to British pop-culture were present. Nevertheless, the show, which took months of preparations and hard work to organize, told the story also of a harder working Britain, retelling the story of its industrial development or the terroristic attacks of 7/7.

The 205 participating countries in the Olympics paraded through a redesigned Olympic Stadium prepared for the ceremony. Not even initial showers during the day of the ceremony ruined the high level of joy and enthusiasm clearly visible in the British Capital.

As the flag bearers paraded down the stadium, the crowd went wild. One of the most waited stars, Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, the current 100 and 200m Olympic champion, did not fail to live up to expectations, constantly engaging with the crowd provoking cheers of joy. Britain, the hosting country, was presented last, receiving a deserved ovation from the crowd.

Boyle’s successful ceremony was filled with legends of British culture and sports. Most notably, David Beckham’s entrance with the Olympic torch on a speed boat on the Thames was an unexpected yet widely popular stunt. Queen Elizabeth also took the occasion of the ceremony to begin her acting career at the age of 86. Supported by Daniel Craig in a 6 minute clip, Craig’s most famous character, and Britain’s most admired spy, James Bond, planned with the Queen a spectacular entrance into the Olympic stadium, which left everybody star struck. The ‘Queen’ (impersonated by a stuntman) entered the stadium with a Union Jack parachute.

After the lighting of the torch and spectacular fireworks, the Ceremony was brought to an end with an emotional performance of ‘Hey Jude’ by Paul McCartney.

All in all. It was a great night.

With the Olympic Games taking place mainly in East London’s Stratford this summer, the whole area has moved into focus recently. While East London was for a long time equated with Shoreditch nightlife and Brick Lane market, Boroughs such as Tower Hamlets and Hackney have increasingly become a popular destination for tourists and inner-city travellers.

One of the reasons why people love to flock to the ‘Far East’ are the weekend markets it has to offer. While Sundays on Brick Lane market have become a ‘must’ on every London tourist’s itinerary since many years, the markets further East have remained refreshingly authentic.

On Saturdays, Broadway Market in Hackney is bustling with people hungry for breakfast, brunch or lunch, mainly depending on their night before. The hard part is choosing which of the many mouth watering foods to go for: from roast hog with apple sauce, Vietnamese Baguettes to vegetarian Meze, you can spend hours just walking up and own the isles. But once you make your choice, you take your food and, whether permitting, join the rest of the world and sit down in adjoining London Fields. Yet it’s the mixture of people that makes Broadway Market truly amazing. Any age group and cultural background, students and pensioners, hipsters or musicians, seem to lay stretched out on the grass enjoying their food and drink.

On Sundays, just a bit down the road, you can already hear Columbia Flower Market long before you can smell or see it. Whether your are promised “the freshest tulips in London” or the ultimate deal of “ three bunches for a fiver” there is no way you can miss the shouted promotions in finest Cockney accent. The market starts early on Sunday mornings an is set on Columbia Road in Tower Hamlets, lined by a variety of cute little boutiques, galleries and cafes. The market is on year round and its offers change with the seasons, so whether its summer lillys or your Christmas tree, this is the place.

In the East, the markets are not just about buying and having been there, they are part of a culture of enjoying, and form a subculture themselves. Of course, people come to buy things, and they wouldn’t be markets without commerce. But people also come to chat, they come to enjoy great food, to spend time with friends or simply browse through a rack of vintage clothes. While on London’s more famous markets like Portobello Market you may sometimes feel like on the Tube in Rush hour, the East follows a more relaxed rhythm, that reminds you more of the chilled vibe of Berlin than busy London.

Since May, a new gem has been added to the East’s market scene. Goldsmith Row Bookmarket has opened true to the motto “books and coffee, but no cupcakes”. From vintage Penguin Classics to Marxist Feminist Literature, the stalls offer a great diversity at good prices. There are critical opinions that contend that the opening of yet another market will further increase the rate of gentrification this area has seen in the past. Yet these developments, and especially the government investment connected to the Olympics, have greatly improved the infrastructure and appeal of an area that has traditionally been one of London’ s poorest and most dangerous. Furthermore, the increase of tourists is expected to greatly benefit local business.

If you have time to spare in London this summer, and want to experience a piece of the real London, be sure to visit the surrounding area of the Olympic city and start enjoying.

by Alessandra Fiedler

With the London 2012 Games getting closer, the rush to find an accommodation during the event is intensifying.

Media outlets compared the hunt for an Olympic property to a modern day “gold rush”, with Londoners trying to maximize their profits as much as they can.

Sol Campbell, a former England defender and Arsenal star, made recent news for setting a £75,000 a week price tag - four time its real value - to his 7,000 squared feet property in Chelsea. While outrageous, the offer takes into account the expected half million extra visitors coming to London for the Olympics.

As many of our readers might be flying to the UK to see the event, we compiled a list of useful tips to find a place to stay during the Olympic weeks.

For those interested in camping or other alternative accomadations then head to : http://campinmygarden.com/ , couchsurfing.com and campinlondon.com .

1. WHERE TO STAY

London is incredibly well connected. Don’t be afraid to look into areas that initially might appear isolated.

Thanks to the excellent public transportation of the capital, which comprises the tube, buses and city-bikes, it is fairly easy, quick and cheap to get to the city centre. Check the Transport of London’s website for information on how to get from one place to the other through public transportation.

Not only will it be easier to find rent in more peripheral areas, but it will also be considerably more affordable.

Try hunting for properties in areas such as: Fulham Broadway, Putney, Camden, Belsize Park, Hackney, Victoria Park, Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, Angel, Southwark, Greenwich, Newington Green, Hoxton, Brixton, Clapham.

Avoid looking in more central areas such as Chelsea, Fulham, Sloane Square, Notting Hill, Victoria, Waterloo and South Kensington, as accommodations will be significantly more expensive and harder to find.

2. WHERE TO LOOK

Gumtree.com is the UK’s most popular classifieds website. While ads on the website are virtually about everything, the site’s main focus is on housing and renting. If you are looking for a single or double room, or a short-term flat-share or rent, this is the first place to go to.

Other valid alternatives, even though not as popular, are findaproperty.com, Facebook’s Marketplace, and Craigslist

As a last resort, you can look into niche websites created especially for the Games, such as rentduringthegames.com, rentals4olympics.com, accommodationforthegames.com, London-property-rental-2012.com.

3. WHAT TO DO

London is full of attractions and historical sites. If you are interested in art and museums, in-between the sporting events you can go and visit the Saatchi Art Gallery, TATE, British Museum, Victoria and Albert and National Portrait Gallery.

In case you want to do some shopping, you might want to go and take a stroll on the King’s Road, Regent Street, visit High Street Kensington, or walk around Brick Lane to find some bargains.

Finally, for the nightlife, the possibilities are countless. Head east towards Shoreditch, Hoxton, Hackney and Angel for a more relaxed, artsy and student atmosphere. Go west instead, towards Fulham, Chelsea and Sloane Square for a more posh vibe.

Without a doubt London will be the place to be this August. Explore the city on its double-decker buses, have a drink in its many bars, and don’t get worried if your accommodation will be slightly de-centred. Wherever you will find yourself, there will be something to do.

The United Kingdom’s sporting world has been shocked with the news of Fabrice Muamba - a 23 year old footballer for Bolton - suffering a cardiac arrest during a FA Cup match against London based team Tottenham.

After initially critical conditions, with the player's stopping for more than one hour, the young English defender - raised in east London - recovered consciousness. While official reports state that conditions have stabilized, the footballer’s career seems at risk.

Muamba’s case has been only the latest of a series of tragic events hitting footballers all over Europe. Spain’s Antonio Puerta died tragically five years ago, in August 2007, while playing a match for his team, Sevilla.

Of a similar fate, but with a happier ending, Rubén de la Red - a now retired Real Madrid player - suffered a non-fatal heart attack in 2008 whilst playing against Real Unión.

The latest European player to have died on the pitch was Daniel Jarque in 2009, which at the time was 26 and captain of the Spanish team Espanyol.

Continuous fatal problems of cardiac nature have caused uproar and disdain in the footballing community, with various top-flight managers, such as Roberto Mancini, calling for more attention in medical tests.

Luckily, Fabrice Muamba's condition are getting better by the day. While everybody awaits is return on the pitch, demands for change in the sporting world are growing louder.

These last few weeks of February helped warm up freezing Londoners with a series of events which have hit the city.

FASHION. Starting last Friday, the London Fashion Week had fashion experts from all over the world travel to the British capital for the occasion. Designers from every continent, especially Europe, are showing off their latest creations in the heart of London’s city centre, at Somerset House on the Strand.

London Fashion Week is the last of the other two major European Fashion events to have taken place earlier in 2012, following the footsteps of its Italian and French counterparts.

MUSIC. For Music lovers, Londoners can follow the annual Brit Awards which are going to take place tonight at The O2 arena. Being considered by many as the European equivalent of the American Grammy’s, the Brits have crowned many up and coming artists, the latest expected to be Adele.

POLITICS. Finally, on a more serious note, London will host a worldwide conference to tackle the current problems occurring in Somalia.

The conference, hosted by Britain’s David Cameron, will reunite European and other worldwide leaders to discuss the future of the country.

Whatever your interests may be, London seems to satisfy them.

In November 2011 British journalist Mary Bowers, 27, was involved in a collision with a large lorry at Wapping Junction as she cycled to work, where she is a reporter at the national newspaper The Times.

It's now February 2012 and she still has not yet woken up from her coma, though her body is steadily healing. Mary is an acquaintance of cafebabel.com. We are all fully behind her recovery, and back the calls for improving the cycling system in the English capital.

On an anecdotal note, London cyclists are generally quite safety-conscious; at least 50% of my friends in London use a bike, wear a helmet, protective clothing, and so on. It's not the case really for the fashion-conscious Parisians I pass everyday on the way to work here. But then again, the city is relatively smaller and better connected so you hear much less about cycling in the French capital. It's more a lifestyle choice than a proper transport method for locals.

Over its eleven years of existence cafebabel.com has published a ton of articles from its citizen reporters about cycling. You can see some of them here; yet no-one has looked beyond the trend or the fad to the safety of it.

Slovenians are one of three European Union member countries to have to wear helmets whilst cycling by law. Image: © Lucille Caballero for 'Green Europe on the ground by cafebabel.com, June 2011, Ljubljana

The Times have launched a Safer Cycling Campaign. As Mary's friend and colleague Kaya Burgess writes,

'As a point of comparison: since 2001, 576 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq; 1,275 cyclists died on British streets. The latest data shows there were 1,850 deaths or serious injuries in the first half of 2011, a 12 per cent rise on the year before. Britain leads the world in competitive cycling; it is time that we did the same for the cyclists on our streets.'

Europe in this

On a European level, the Vienna convention of 1968 is the white paper on pedestrian and cycling safety in the EU. At cafebabel.com we can contribute to an awareness on a pan-European level about safer cycling in our own cities and towns. Copenhagen and Amsterdam are regularly quoted as European models for this.

Whilst London is a magnificent city, loved by its locals, foreigners, and is a veritable melting pot of cultures, sounds, images, lifestyles, it's also a city which is home to the 'white ghost bikes' - memorials of bicycles painted white and locked to the places where Londoners have been injured, sometimes fatally, or killed in bike accidents - 3, 000 from October 2010 to September 2011.

White bike in Stoke Newington, north London, in memorial, 2008. Image: (cc) Nicobobinus/ Flickr

The lowest percentile of cyclists, according to a 2009 report by the European commission, is in Finland. The same report points out that there are 6% of cyclist fatalaties (and 17% of pedestrians) in the 27 European union countries, with children aged between 6 - 14 being the victims most at risk. 80% of European accidents involve a motor vehicle. (Some more interesting facts: cycle helmets have been mandatory in Malta since 2004, in Sweden, Slovenia and the Czech Republic for children up to 15 years of age, and in Spain for all cyclists outside urban areas.)

It's been a three month wait for Mary to get better. The Times has correctly shown where it stands on infrastucture, investment and education of, in and about the cycling system in London. Of course it's a shame it takes something like this to happen to slap us all around the face for action. The great thing about Mary and her British colleagues is their resilience and belief. I was at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport in early February when I saw Mary's face beaming out at me from the front page of The Times. The few shop assistants I showed the newspaper to sent their get well messages and at least knew the story behind the picture. It shouldn't be this way, but it is, so it's no longer about 'let's do something about it', but 'we are doing something about it'.

Mary's family are running a great blog updating on her condition and the situation in London, which is regularly updated where possible here. By January it reached over 5, 000 views. Mary is also a great musician and you can hear some of her band's music here.

Forget the certain London MP and Government Whip who owned two homes equidistant from Westminster, or perhaps the wide variety of cronies that both Mayors of London have employed in the past, together with their various indiscretions, from dinner with the hobby horse to downright cronyism. Ladies & Gentlemen, we have the most useless man in London politics, a sheer waste of space, a vacuous waste of money and a man who has no parallel when it comes to putting foots in mouths and bums in cabs.

Brian Coleman is the London Assembly member for Barnet & Camden in North London. Not that anyone in Camden would admit voting for him. As a former LB Camden man, I personally blame Barnet for keeping him in place. From calling a London MP 'ditzy' for calling in the fire brigade after funny noises from her boiler, to shamelessly claiming over 10,000 pounds on taxis when members of the London Assembly already receive a Zone 1-6 Travelcard free, nothing seems to be taboo for what many round here call 'The Toad'. Nor does he seem to have any shame in engaging in the sort of behavior that the Telegraph would be more than happy to label 'completely outragrous'. Brian happens to hold the distinct honour of being the last London AM to publish his expenses, and only after a rather nasty blasting from ol' Boris himself. The list, as you can imagine, goes on far longer than I can be bothered to elaborate upon in one short post.

Could this be the most useless man in London? I certainly think so.

by Chris Dalby

The MP expenses scandal has succeeded in doing what years of policy announcements, Commons debates and campaign events utterly failed to: re-galvanise the British public’s interest in the political system. To hear the ways in which MPs that have been using tax money as their own piggy bank are being held to account would make the architects of democracy weep for joy. It is all the more shameful then that this outrage rests upon a foundation of utter hypocrisy.

For the past 6 weeks pro-Tamil protesters have held a continuous presence outside the Houses of Parliament, demonstrating for the UK government to do more to to help the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Photo courtesy of flickr user Travis_Pictures, taken on 11th May in Westminster

In the last 24 hours the protests have grown to around 2000 people with Westminster Bridge jammed with traffic, buses unable to move and Parliament square blocked off to all cars. The sit down protest start growing early afternoon and by 7pm, the police had built up a heavy presence and ambulances were on stand by on the bridge. However, the protest was remaining peaceful with many demonstrators sat on the ground chanting.